Heat exchangers are used in a wide variety of applications and come in a wide variety of configurations to fit these various applications. One particular application in which heat exchangers are used is as condensers in refrigeration cabinets. The condensers in the refrigeration cabinets can come in a variety of configurations. When a condenser is installed underneath the refrigeration cabinet, the heat exchanger is generally a wire-on-tube condenser. These condensers underneath the refrigeration cabinet have a much larger horizontal dimension then vertical dimension, assuming a horizontal air flow. When the condensers are installed in the machine compartment of the refrigeration cabinet, the condensers will have a larger vertical dimension than horizontal dimension, assuming a horizontal air flow. Because these condensers have a larger vertical dimension then horizontal dimension, the configuration of these condensers is typically that of a jelly-roll condenser or a multi-layer wire-on-tube configuration. Therefore, the configuration of the condenser in a refrigeration cabinet can vary depending on whether the condenser is positioned underneath the refrigeration cabinet or within a machine compartment of the cabinet.
Because the configurations vary, a manufacturer of refrigeration cabinets must have available a variety of heat exchanger configurations dependent on where the condenser is to be placed. In an effort to simplify the manufacturing process and to reduce cost, it would be desirable to have a common condenser configuration that can be used in either location. It would be further desirable if the common condenser configuration can utilize a universal fin that could be cut or separated to form one or more fins for either configuration regardless of the vertical or horizontal dimensions of the condenser configuration.
In domestic refrigerators, heat exchangers are used to form both evaporators and condensers. When the heat exchangers are configured to be evaporators in domestic refrigerators, they have a relatively small inlet for air and a comparably long air path through the evaporator. That is, assuming a vertical airflow, the evaporators are configured to have a much larger vertical dimension than horizontal dimension.
The heat exchangers that are typically configured to perform as either evaporators or condensers for domestic refrigerators use a tube and fin pattern that is different depending upon whether the heat exchangers are configured as evaporators or condensers. The different configurations do not allow for the use of a common fin to make the heat exchangers. Therefore, a manufacturer of these heat exchangers must maintain not only different configurations but also a variety of fin patterns that can be used on the differing configurations of the heat exchangers. It would be desirable if the configurations of the heat exchangers were similar enough that a universal or common fin pattern could be used to provide fins for the heat exchanger regardless of whether the heat exchangers are configured as condensers or as evaporators. The use of a universal or common fin pattern will reduce the cost of manufacturing the heat exchanger by reducing the variety of fins the manufacturer of heat exchangers will be required to produce and/or stock and reducing the capital investment required to purchase and maintain stamping dies for each different fin pattern.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a heat exchanger that can be configured with either a larger number of tube passes parallel to the airflow or tube passes perpendicular to the airflow and that will utilize the same universal or common fin pattern. The use of a common or universal fin pattern thereby reduces the cost to manufacture and provide heat exchangers of varying configurations. Additionally, it would be desirable if the tube pattern were such that the tube passes were oriented relative to the airflow for an optimal or highly efficient heat transfer.